The top US general overseeing forces in the Middle East told lawmakers he brushed aside an apparent offer by the Taliban to let US troops take control of Afghanistan’s capital city as international evacuations from Kabul turned chaotic last month.
Senior Taliban official Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar suggested the option to CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie during a hastily-arranged meeting in Doha on August 15.
"That is not why I was there, that was not part of my instruction, and we did not have the resources to undertake that mission,” McKenzie told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
The CENTCOM commander acknowledged he arrived in the Qatari capital with a plan to coordinate with Baradar on keeping Taliban forces 30 km outside Kabul, but he denied news reports that he threatened to strike Taliban forces if they entered the city.
